Harry Markopolos, the man who repeatedly warned US investigators about accused
$50bn (£35bn) fraudster Bernard Madoff, will speak publicly for the first
time on Wednesday.

Markopolos, a former Wall Street banker, informed the Securities and Exchange Commission as early as 1999 that he was concerned about Mr Madoff’s activities.

But his cries fell on deaf ears, until Mr Madoff’s alleged confession on December 11, after which point he said he had been treated as “the boy who cried wolf” by the financial regulator. Mr Markopolos will testify before the House Financial Services sub-committee in the US Congress as politicians look into how to reform the regulation of the financial services industry.

He was due to speak before the full House Financial Services committee last month, but pulled out at the last minute due to an illness.

He has said in the past that he first began looking into Mr Madoff’s company in 1996 after his boss at Rampart Investment Management, where he was then the chief investment officer, asked him to figure out how to match the returns his firm was making.

The analysis Mr Markpolos subsequently undertook convinced him that there was no legal way he could be persistently outperforming the markets, and so he took his concerns first to the SEC’s Boston office, and then to its New York office.

At a Senate hearing last week, SEC enforcement chief Linda Thomsen – who will also testify on Wednesday - said the regulator began a probe of Mr Madoff’s affairs in 2006, but closed it in 2008 without recommending any actions. The SEC’s own inspector general is currently carrying out an investigation of the regulator’s actions.

Mr Madoff is charged with one count of securities fraud, but has yet to enter a plea.